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During their service, men and women in our Armed Forces live by a common creed, promising never to leave a soldier behind. We should live by the same principle. When our veterans are asked to travel hundreds of miles for care that's offered right next door, we simply aren't living up to that standard, and something has to change.

Here's a news flash: No soldier gives his life. That's not the way it works. Most soldiers who make a conscious decision to place themselves in harm's way do it to protect their buddies. They do it because of the bonds of friendship - and it goes so much deeper than friendship.

I've come to admire our military kids more than you all will know, because you guys are heroes. And the only way your parents are able to serve is because you guys hold it down, and you do it with maturity beyond your years.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for military families. To have to worry about your loved ones and still try and live a normal life is extremely hard.

Life does not stand still for families and local communities when our brave men and women are deployed, but we can make their time apart more bearable by recognizing their sacrifice and fulfilling our commitments to them.

I have the most utmost respect for the men and women overseas, and I only played a soldier on television. Again, I can only imagine the sacrifices that they make every single day.

There's a tradition of public service in my family. I'm one of three boys that joined the military. My father was in the Peace Corps.

I've grown up, luckily, with only a distant relationship to war and soldiering.

As a reporter, I embedded for modest stints with American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I'm asked about those experiences, I always say - and mean - that we civilians don't deserve the soldiers we have.

I experience for the American officers and soldiers that friendship which arises from having shared with them for a length of time dangers, sufferings, and both good and evil fortune.